


Please Don't Go

by Miss_Peletier



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Angst, F/M, Hurt/Comfort, post-season 3
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-01
Updated: 2016-07-01
Packaged: 2018-07-19 11:32:56
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,168
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7359559
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Miss_Peletier/pseuds/Miss_Peletier
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Everything changes when Marcus and Abby return from Polis, but Marcus doesn’t know why. Confused and hurt, he begins to re-evaluate their relationship while worrying for her well being.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Please Don't Go

**Author's Note:**

> This was written immediately after seeing the promo for 3x13, so it's not strictly speaking canon, but hey. *shrugs*

          Marcus Kane didn’t want to believe it.

          He didn’t want to acknowledge the validity of the singular, persistent thought that exploded in head like the sound of a gunshot. But the longer it stayed there and grew, rooting itself among his other daily considerations, the more pointless it was to ignore it.

           Abby was  _avoiding him_.

           It started the day they returned from Polis, when she and Jackson had gone straight to Medical to help the rest of their people whose necks still contained Jaha’s vicious chip. He’d held her hand tightly throughout the course of the journey, hoping to at least see a smile form on her lips, but he hadn’t been so lucky. 

           They paused in front of the disguised escape panel in the wall, and as he glanced at the airbrushed metal and fading yellow paint he was overwhelmed with memories of the last time they’d been there. How hopeful they’d been, contrasted with how hesitant they were now. 

            _May we meet again._

_We will._

Marcus knew neither one of them could have anticipated  _how_  the hands of fate would guide them back to each other. If he had, he would’ve never let her stay behind: that was a guilt he’d hold in his chest for years. The scars on his hands and legs burned, but the regret he felt over that simple moment was a knife to his heart.

           “Marcus, thank you for protecting Clarke,” she’d said before disappearing down the hallway that would take her from his side for what he’d assumed would only be the next few hours. A lock of hair fluttered into her eyes, but it couldn’t quite mask the vacancy of her gaze. “And I’m sorry. I’m sorry for everything.”

           “You have nothing to apologize for,” he said, wrapping his arms around her and trailing his fingers up and down her back. She stepped away from him after a few short seconds, flinching in his embrace as if his touch blistered her skin.

           “I’ll talk to you later,” she said, her voice a hollow monotone.

           Four days had passed, and ‘later’ hadn’t arrived.

           He’d have been a fool, he thought, to think nothing would change between them when they returned: Abby was too kind, too gentle to be unaffected by the atrocities ALIE forced her to commit. But as the hands of the clock moved forward, increasing his uncertainty and disease with every rhythmic click, he wondered if he’d also been a fool to hope she’d trust him to help ease her pain.

          After all, he’d caused her no small amounts of agony in the past. The times he’d arrested her on the Ark, nearly floated her, refused to send a search party when they made it to the ground, shocklashed her…the list was extensive and detailed. His heart told him she’d forgiven him for the horrible things he’d done, that she understood he’d sooner die than hurt her again, but his head whispered a sentiment he desperately hoped was untrue.

_She could never love you. Not after all the things you’ve done._

           That sadistic voice had been quieted for a precious few days after they’d said goodbye, but it began to yell again when her demeanor shifted. Perhaps her time under the influence of the chip had forced her to see him differently. It was true that many of the things she’d done under ALIE’s influence, he’d done of his own free will in order to uphold the Ark’s laws. Perhaps she thought he was a monster.

_She could never love you now._

          It was that nagging doubt that kept him awake that first night, tossing and turning as the shadows lengthened and shortened around him. 

          Days later, the hours crawled past as he sat reading at the small desk in the corner of his room. He had seen her today, if only briefly – he’d admit that was all his heart could handle. Marcus had asked her around sunset if she was planning on getting any rest, and she told him simply that she’d hand control of Medical over to the recently ALIE-free Jackson in an hour. 

          Then she told him she had patients to see.

          She barely left Medical. The door to her room was always open, but the lights were off and the bed was perfectly made. He didn’t want to make assumptions, but it appeared as though she hadn’t so much as set foot in her quarters since they’d gotten back. 

         It was as if she were Chancellor again, sacrificing sleep for the good of her people. But this time, she seemed to have decided she was better off without Marcus’ help. 

        He tilted his head and sighed, the sound muffled by the sheer depth of his exhaustion. His insomnia had stunted the rest he knew he needed, and the cuts that littered his hands and feet were more raw than usual tonight. Going to Medical to ask for medicine wasn’t an option: there were people who needed help far more urgently than he did. But if he was this exhausted, this weary, he could only imagine how she was feeling.

            _Dammit,_ he thought in a rush of uncharacteristic annoyance.  _Abby, you’re not doing this again._

Even if she didn’t want him, she couldn’t stop him from worrying about her. 

           Slamming his copy of  _The Three Musketeers_  onto the unfinished metal, he made his way toward the door. His emotions switched between compassion and anger: of course she’d try to stay up all night. Of course she’d ignore her own well-being. Doctor Abigail Griffin would stay up for days on end if it meant she could heal everyone in Arkadia. But by doing that, she wasn’t healing herself.

          And as he wandered the moonlit corridors of the wrecked station they called home, he paused a moment in the doorway of her room. He took in the same empty bed, the same darkened lights: nothing had changed since the last time he’d wandered by.

            Determined and a bit nervous, he made his way into the heart of Medical. He waged a war with that pessimistic nagging doubt as he wove his way between full cots and rows of people with incisions in their necks to find the person he was sure could lead him to her.

           “Jackson?” he asked, and the man jolted from his position as he stood over one of their patients. He couldn’t ignore the guilt in the younger man’s eyes as he regarded Marcus under the wavering lights of the infirmary: clearly, he believed Marcus was angry with him for the role he’d played in Abby’s unwilling entrance to the City of Light. 

          Nothing could have been farther from the truth. Years of seeing Jackson work with her had convinced him the man was punishing himself harder than Marcus ever could, but at the root of the matter it had never been Jackson’s fault. Jaha could have used anyone to get to her because she loved every member of their camp so deeply. Jackson just happened to be closest, holding the greatest strategic value and a heart that felt every pulse of pain.

         “Marcus?” Jackson said, and he hoped he didn’t look too intimidating with his dark jacket and unkempt hair. How could he manage to look intimidating at one in the morning? “Is something wrong?”

         He shook his head. “No, I’m just looking for Abby. I thought she was planning on getting some rest tonight, and now it’s late.”

         Jackson scowled, confusion etched in every centimeter of his expression.

         “I think you might be mistaken, sir. She’s going to turn Medical over to me at nine, but it’s only…” he trailed off and stole a glance at the clock. When he realized how the time in his head and the time on the wall differed, he blanched. 

         “Shoot,” Jackson whispered as he began his hurried procession through the menagerie of occupied cots. “Abby! Abby!” he nearly yelled, frantic. If Jackson hadn’t noticed the time, Marcus was willing to bet that Abigail Griffin had paid no attention either.  _Doctors,_ he thought with chagrin. 

        “Do you know where she is?” Marcus whispered urgently, not wanting to wake the sleeping patients.

        “I know she was here a few hours ago…” he said, gesturing to the Abby-free room around them. “We’ve been so busy, we divided the patients and started working on them individually. It was the only way to get the chips out of everyone in the least amount of time. I didn’t realize…” he stopped talking again, and Marcus could practically feel the guilt radiating from his small frame. 

        “It’s okay,” he said, resting a hand on the young man’s shoulder. “We both know she’s still here. There’s no harm done.”

         Jackson nodded, relieved, and they continued searching for the woman they both knew would sooner have taken another of Jaha’s chips than set foot outside of Medical again. The sheer quantity of patients in every room made a realistic search difficult, and it had been nearly twenty minutes before Jackson came and tapped Marcus’ shoulder to get his attention. 

        “I found her,” he said. “Follow me.”

_At long last._

         She was asleep in a chair next to the sink, holding some tools for which Marcus had no name. It was clear that she’d gone to clean her instruments and sat down for a moment, probably intending to take a brief reprieve from being on her feet all day, and her body had decided to shut down before she could restart it again. 

       “I’ll leave you two,” Jackson said as he hurried from the room.

        Marcus tilted his head and sighed for the third time that evening, debating whether or not to wake her. Her neck was bent at an awkward angle so she could rest her head against the wall, and she’d be sore in the morning if he left her like this. But at the same time, if he removed her from the world of her dreams, who was to say she wouldn’t go right back to Medical and ignore his pleas for her to rest?

        Standing there in the doorway with a quandary, Abby unknowingly made his decision for him.

        “No,” Marcus heard her murmur, and for a moment he wondered if she’d awoken and understood why he was here. He’d almost prepared an argument when he saw her eyes were still closed, and from there everything escalated.

        “No!” she said, firmer this time, and he began to make his way toward her. In the few missions they’d been on together she had never spoken in her sleep, but he had been willing to let her stay on the chair if it meant she’d actually close her eyes for the night. 

         Now he knew that wasn’t a possibility.

         “NO!” she yelled, her body jerking as her breaths came in short gasps. She’d twisted her fingers around the arms of the chair, her knuckles turning white from the strength of her grip. He shoved empty cots out of the way, past the point of caring if he made too much noise. 

         “NO! NO!” she was nearly sobbing, and in the muted silence Marcus could almost hear the sound of his heart breaking. Whatever this was, he needed to help her. He needed to wake her as quickly as he could.

         “Abby!” he yelled, minimizing the distance between them with a few loud crashes. The sound of her name and the noise weren’t enough to pull her from the dream. He heard Jackson’s footsteps in the other room, but his brain didn’t turn the sound into anything meaningful. There was only Abby right now; Abby, and the tiles that stretched between them.

           She continued to scream and scream, tears streaming down her face as if she’d been caught in a rainstorm, and Marcus fought back the lump forming in his throat. He thought she’d be done suffering when they got that damn chip out of her neck. 

           Shoving the last two beds away with a grunt, he rushed to her and shook her shoulders.

           “Abby!” he exclaimed, praying silently that she’d awaken. Thankfully, the screaming stopped and a moment later he was looking into her bleary, haunted eyes. “Abby,” he repeated, softer this time.

           “Marcus?” she murmured, her voice layered with the ghost of sleep that had barely released her. “What are you doing here?”

           “I…” he paused, uncertain of how best to continue. What could he say?  _I was worried for you. I miss you. You’re avoiding me, and that hurts horribly._

“I couldn’t sleep,” he finished lamely. 

            It wasn’t a lie. 

            Her gaze drifted to the marks on his hands, the scars that hadn’t yet healed. She closed her eyes for a long moment and swallowed hard.

           “I can give you something for the pain.”

           “I’m not in pain.” That  _was_  a lie, but he wasn’t about to tell her the truth. Though she didn’t call his bluff, she must have known his statement for what it was: she stood up from the chair in one fluid motion and started rifling through various cabinets, eventually returning to him with a pair of red pills in her right hand.

           “Take these,” she said firmly, holding the medicine in her palm. “They might not make it stop hurting completely, but they’ll help.”

           “Abby, I really don’t –“

           “ _Please_  take them,” she reiterated, a tremor shaking her simple words. “Marcus, please.”

           His eyes met hers, sensing the sadness and desperation that stirred behind them, and he couldn’t deny her request. So he reached out and took them from her, his fingers gliding across her skin for just a moment. 

           In that heartbeat of a second, he didn’t need medicine to be eradicated of his pain. 

           She offered him water, but he knew their supplies were limited and declined. Thankfully she didn’t press him, and he barely felt the scratch of the pills as they descended slowly down his throat. 

           Their dilemma alleviated, they stared at each other for a few moments in a deepening, awkward silence. He couldn’t bring himself to say the words that were in his heart, so he let his brain take over.

           “You’re supposed to be sleeping, Abby, not helping patients in Medical. You told me you were going to bed hours ago.”

           Her gaze hardened as she tilted her head and raised her eyebrows.

           “What are you talking about? It’s only…” she turned to the clock, and Marcus was ready with a gentle smirk when she glanced back at him.

           “Only one-thirty in the morning, Doctor Griffin.”

           “Shit,” she whispered, rubbing her temples. “Well, I got some sleep here, so I don’t have to go to bed now.”

           Marcus was aghast. Her screams were still ringing in his ears, and he wasn’t about to let her work herself any harder than she already had. She needed to rest, to heal, not to stay up until the first light of day broke over the horizon.

           “Of course you do!” he exclaimed. “Abby, you can’t help them when you’re falling asleep while you clean your tools. Don’t you think you could do better, help them better, once you’ve slept?

           “You can come back in the morning,” he continued, trying to reassure her. “They’ll still be here. Jackson has everything under control.”

           As if the utterance of his name gave permission for him to enter the room, Jackson materialized in the doorway. Marcus silently begged him to say something that would put Abby’s mind at ease, that would allow her to leave Medical for the night without wasting the next few hours in worry. He didn’t disappoint.

           “Everything’s fine,” Jackson said with a small smile. “Everyone’s asleep, and when I checked last they weren’t reporting any increased levels of pain. You really should get some rest.”

            _Thank you,_ Marcus thought. He watched as she visibly relaxed, telling Jackson she’d be back in no less than six hours. With a nod, the young doctor walked away to continue his shift. 

           “What happened?” Abby asked as she observed the disarray of beds on either side of the path to her chair. 

            _You started screaming and I had to reach you. You were having a nightmare. I was afraid that you were hurting again, and even though things haven’t been the same between us I couldn’t bear to see you in pain._

“I got tired of walking between cots,” was all he said, flashing a half-hearted grin that never reached his eyes. She smiled back, but he could tell her heart wasn’t in it. Perhaps it was a trick of the light, but he thought he saw her lips tremble a fraction.

           They made their way slowly back to the hallway they both shared, movements inhibited by assorted aches and pains. As they passed by different doorways they glimpsed different snapshots into other people’s early morning lives: Raven and Monty laughing at something Jasper said, Sinclair talking to his wife, Bellamy radioing Clarke. 

           Everyone had their own path at two in the morning, their own road to follow, and as he walked back toward the room of the woman he loved, Marcus had to wonder what path he and Abby were on. He wanted more than anything to ask her about her nightmare and her silence, to take some of the weight of being controlled by ALIE off her shoulders, but he knew she wouldn’t open her mouth until she was ready. He wouldn’t push her. 

           She reached out and intertwined her fingers with his as they continued their silent procession, and a smile formed on his face that even his persistent exhaustion couldn’t erase. He glimpsed a similar smile on her lips, and he could almost forget about those screams that still echoed in his head, the deafening silence between them that spanned the last few days.

           Almost.

           Before long they found themselves in front of her small quarters, the door still ajar from when Marcus had peered inside earlier. 

           “I suppose this is where we say goodnight,” he said softly under the faint lights of a mostly-sleeping Arkadia, turning to face her directly. 

           “I suppose,” she said, her voice oddly hoarse. Marcus opened his mouth to ask her about it, to ask her what was wrong and not relent until she told him the truth, but she stepped closer and found his lips with her own before he could utter a single word. Her hands wove through his hair as he pressed her closer with trembling fingers. 

           Despite everything, the events of the past few days and his trepidation about her well-being, his mind was wiped blank when she kissed him. It was almost comical how completely taken he was with her, he knew. He was a grown man, far beyond the years of childhood infatuations. But he couldn’t ignore how his face flushed when he caught her looking at him, how he had to fight to keep his hands from shaking when he held her and how his heart raced every time she was close.  

            And then as quickly as it had started, it was over.

           Abby broke apart from him with a slight gasp, and in a kiss-induced haze Marcus wondered if it had been something he’d done. Then the screams came back, reverberating around the walls of his mind as she disentangled herself from his embrace and moved to turn on the light in her quarters.

           “Abby?” he asked, his tone wavering more than he had expected.

           “Yes?” she responded, and he couldn’t ignore the sadness that permeated her gaze. He didn’t want to push her, but he was finding it harder and harder to keep going like this.

           “You were having a nightmare when I found you. You were screaming, and I panicked. That’s why the beds were scattered.”

           She gave a brief, joyless laugh, free of any real emotion. “Well, that makes sense.”

           He continued. “I heard you, and I couldn’t help it. I was so worried. I’m sorry. I won’t ask you to talk about it if that’s not what you want, but I need to know if you’re okay.” 

           She sighed, and despite the fading light he was able to observe the slump of her shoulders, the defeat that bled through her proud posture as she pressed a hand to her temple. It terrified him.

           “Marcus, I can’t talk to you when you’re out there and I’m in here,” she said numbly, and he stepped into her quarters without a second thought.

           “Do you want me to close the door?” 

           “I think that would be best.”

           The second the latch slipped shut, tears began to stream down her face. It was as if it had been cause and effect: one door closed, another opened. 

           Marcus darted forward to hold her in his arms, engulfing her in his embrace as her tears matured to full-blown sobs. Saltwater washed away their lack of contact in days past as they stood together under the blackness of night, Marcus rocking her gently as she continued to cry.

           “It’s okay,” he whispered, not entirely certain what else to say without knowing specifics as to what had upset her. It could have been so many things: the horde of their people in Medical, Clarke, Jaha and ALIE…the list went on. But ‘it’s okay’ had a kind of inherent rhythm to it, a built-in comfort, and he hoped it would do the trick. “Abby, it’s okay. It’s okay.”

           She buried her face against his neck, and he felt wetness slip beneath the collar of his shirt where her tears met his skin. He thought he heard her say something, murmur a sentence against the sobs that wracked her small body like an earthquake, but he couldn’t understand until she repeated it.

           “I never wanted to hurt you,” she sobbed, repeating her words from days past. “I’m sorry for everything. I  _never_  wanted to hurt you.”

           “I know,” Marcus said. “You were chipped, Abby. You weren’t in control.”

           “I wanted to leave,” she said. “But ALIE figured out our plan. She and Jaha told me they’d have you killed the second we set foot outside Polis unless I let her take over. I didn’t even  _recognize_  you after that – she strengthened her grip, took away all of my memories. But I would’ve left. That was what I wanted, more than anything else.” 

           Her words took him back to the capitol city again and he saw himself waiting for her, cloaked by the damp midnight air. She’d shown up, but she wasn’t alone – she’d been flanked by grounder guards on either side, men whose horrifying masks he knew would haunt his nightmares if he ever managed to sleep again. Before he knew it he was tied to a post, pain shooting through every centimeter of his flesh. Worst of all, the woman he loved was giving the orders and asking the questions.

           “Just tell us where Clarke and the others are hiding,” she had demanded, her words both hollow and threatening, empty and filled with venom.

          “I can’t do that,” he’d responded. The pain of the blow that followed was nothing compared to the throbbing in his heart. 

          She was gone. The woman he’d spoken to just hours before, the woman who promised to escape with him rather than lose him again, was lost somewhere in the City of Light. Now he realized that even though the city was destroyed, Abby Griffin hadn’t yet found her way back home.

          “I knew it wasn’t you,” he said, trying everything in his power to alleviate her suffering. “You wouldn’t have done that, Abby. You weren’t giving those orders, asking those questions. She was in your head, and she trapped you inside yourself. This wasn’t your fault.”

           “But I took the chip. If I had found another way, been more careful-“

           “You took the chip to save someone you  _love_. That’s the same choice any of us would have made. If it had been you, or Bellamy, any of the kids…anyone here…I would have done the same thing.”

           The tears began to flow again, soaking through the front of his shirt and cementing it to his chest. All he could do was hold her. Seeing her like this fractured him to his core, and each drop that fell to the tile floor was a punch to his gut. 

_If you had insisted that she came with you, she wouldn’t be crying. She would have been safe._

           How could he ever forgive himself?

           She leaned away slightly, just enough to look in his eyes, and something inside of him began to fray around the edges. 

           “I’m sorry,” he said, trying to stitch his emotions back together before they came undone completely. “I should have tried harder to convince you to come with us when we left. If what happened is  _anyone’s_  fault, Abby, it’s mine.”

           She laughed, a choked, thick sound.

           “Marcus, you can’t take the blame for this,” she said, leaning into him again until he could feel her head against his heartbeat. “Although I should have known you’d try. I made my choice to stay behind, and I just hope you can forgive me.”

           The fact that she would ask the man who shocklashed her and pressed charges against her husband for forgiveness astounded him. She was his light, his hope, his faith, and if anyone should have been asking for forgiveness he knew it should be him. But she had bestowed it with her unending kindness, and later, her love. 

             No matter how many times she kissed him, how many times he held her, there would always be a hesitant part of his brain that was convinced he would never deserve her.

            “There’s nothing to forgive,” he said, sincerity lacing every word.

            “And I’m sorry I’ve been distant,” she continued as he wiped the tears from her cheeks. “But when I saw you I couldn’t stop thinking about everything that happened in Polis. I didn’t want to push you away, but I felt so guilty. You wanted to help me, and I tortured you. I hated being away from you, but I didn’t know what to say. And now, if I fall asleep, I see it all again.  _That’s_  what happened in Medical.  _That’s_  why I was screaming.”

           He bit his lip to keep it from trembling, but he couldn’t stop a few tears from slipping down his cheeks and into her hair. 

           “Just let me help you,” he whispered. “Abby, I don’t want to lose you again.”

           His heart was worn down to bare threads and simple stitches at the sight of her suffering, at the sensation of her thin frame trembling in his arms.  _I can’t let you punish yourself like this. Not after everything we’ve been through._

           He ran a hand up and down her arm, past the point of caring about how his hands shook. “There has to be something I can do.”

          Teary brown-eyed gazes collided in the dead of night as the ticking of the clock almost consumed her words. 

           “Don’t leave, Marcus.”

           “I won’t,” he responded instantly. “I’ll never leave you again.”

           She smiled, slowly, hesitantly, and he felt his heart begin to put itself back together with every millimeter her lips stretched upward.

           “I know, but I was talking about tonight. Maybe it’s selfish of me, but I don’t want to be alone. I’m tired, I’m terrified, I missed you, and I don’t want to lose you again either.”

           “That’s not selfish,” he said, his words overlapping with hers. “And you won’t be alone.”

            Later, months and months after the sun rose to signal the start of a new day, he’d reflect on how that first night wasn’t quite how he’d imagined it. Truthfully he’d created a more romantic scenario in his head, one that involved more smiling and kissing and touching and happiness. But true to their relationship in every way, nothing went how he imagined it would. 

             He wouldn’t have wanted it any other way.

             Because then in her eyes he saw both the pain of today and the promise of tomorrow, both the clouds and the silver lining just across the horizon. He saw both the storm and the calm, the disaster and the rebuilding that came afterward. She ripped him apart. She held him together. She was his annihilation and his salvation, and he wanted to be destroyed and saved. 

             Neither of them bothered with pajamas – they were too tired to care whether or not they slept in the clothes they’d worn during the day – it wasn’t the first time they had to fall asleep in their normal gear. So Marcus shed his jacket, hanging it on a hook by the door, and Abby did the same. She removed the ponytail holder from her hair, setting it next to Jake’s wedding ring on a nightstand next to her bed, and rubbed her red-rimmed eyes.

            He wasn’t sure if he should read anything into her lack of a ring, but  now wasn’t the time to ask. They were both existing in blurred realities, in a universe distorted by an exhausted haze, and such questions could be asked later. Later, when they were both whole again.

          For now they turned back the bedsheets together, broken and hopeful, filled with unanswered questions and words unspoken. But when she curled against him under the covers, he couldn’t help but think about how oddly  _right_  everything felt. Yes, they both had their demons to contend with and they often fought losing battles. Yet there was something in the way her breath filled a silence he never knew he’d gotten used to, a kind of simple poetry that masked the suffocating loneliness of open air. 

           “I’m sorry if I wake you up tonight,” she whispered to him in the darkness. “I’ll try not to.”

           “Hey,” he whispered in response. “If you’re awake, I’ll be awake, too. We’re in this together.”

            Her eyes shone with tears in the dim light, reflecting the fractured brightness of the full moon as she angled her head upward and pressed her lips against his cheek. 

           “Thank you, Marcus.”

           “Goodnight, Abby.”

            She was asleep within minutes, her breathing evening out against his tear-stained shirt. When he looked at her like this, her face smooth and her features relaxed, it was hard to imagine the battles she fought within her own mind. But she was a warrior, his Abby.

           She’d heal her scars, just as his would fade.

           As the shadows lengthened and shifted, Marcus found himself unable to succumb to sleep for yet another night. But this was a different brand of insomnia, this was hopeful, and he didn’t mind it so deeply as he would’ve if he’d been tossing and turning in his own room. 

          So instead of sleeping, of giving in to his rising fatigue and weariness, he looked out the window at the stars and silently begged the hands of fate to stop using Abigail Griffin as their toy.


End file.
